At present, to make an overseas call (international call) from a mobile communication terminal such as a cellular phone, a PHS phone, or the like, the regular procedure is to make, in advance, a use contract with a international communication company. Specifically, a user writes his name, address, and place for contact, a payment method, etc. on a “cellular phone/PHS phone international use contract application form” and presents it to an international communication company. At this time, a person who has a credit card can select “credit card payment” as a payment method. However, a person who does not have a credit card is obliged to select “bill payment” that requires payment of deposit after having himself examined by going to the international communication company or by means of a letter or the like. Therefore, certain time is needed until admission.
In the case of a mobile communication terminal, since the communication terminal is mobile literally and it is difficult to determine the place of the user, the current situation is such that to prevent avoidance of call charge payment it is inevitable to ask the user to follow a strict procedure.
On the other hand, a method using a prepaid card that is dedicated to international calls is also available. In this case, a user inputs, through a cellular phone or the like, the card number (valuable cipher information) that is written on his prepaid card before inputting “(a country number)+(an out-of-town telephone exchange number (area code/region No.))+(a telephone number of a party on the other end (local telephone exchange number+subscriber's number))” of a person on the termination side, whereby the user can perform an overseas telephone conversation within the confines of the amount-of-service number of the card.
Such prepaid cards are issued by individual international communication companies that provide international telephone call services and sold in convenience stores etc.
A prepaid card allows a telephone conversation within the confines of a prepaid amount of money and hence is entirely free of fear of failure in collecting call charges. Therefore, it is not necessary to ask a user to follow a cumbersome procedure such as making a contract or paying deposit in advance. It can be said that this method meets the needs of temporarily staying foreigners and young people who want to make an international call more easily.
However, there are problems that each international communication company needs to bear the cost of not only production of prepaid cards themselves but also transport and storage of cards that are valuable as notes. And there is much risk in the transport and storage of cards.
Prepaid cards for international calls are different from telephone cards that are used with public telephones in such a manner that a card itself is input to a card reader, whereby an amount of money is determined and displayed. Instead, a user inputs the card number shown on a prepaid card by manipulating the dial buttons of his own cellular phone, whereby a telephone conversation corresponding to an amount of money that is assigned to the card number is enabled.
That is, prepaid cards for international calls are merely carriers of valuable cipher information and the valuable cipher information itself shown on each card is important. In this respect, cards may be just sheets of paper. However, to prevent their abuse during the course of their distribution, cards need to be subjected to special processing for concealing the valuable cipher information. Further, to prevent cards from being damaged during their distribution, cards need to have a certain degree of strength. These are factors of cost increase.
Incidentally, although online shopping over the Internet has become popular recently, no safe and easy charge settlement system has been established yet. Usually, money is transferred to the account of a mail-order firm after arrival of a commodity or payment is made to a transport company in exchange for a commodity at the time of its delivery (what is called COD (cash on delivery)). A person having a credit card can make credit card settlement by sending the number, the expiration date, etc. of his own credit card.
However, in the money transfer method, the mail-order firm side always has a risk of failure in charge collection. Further, the commodity purchaser side needs to go to a financial institution to transfer money and must pay a transfer charge.
In the case of the COD method, no failure in charge collection occurs in the mail-order firm side. However, there is a problem that the purchaser side needs to bear a relatively high COD charge.
In the case of using a credit card, the information of a user's own credit card travels through the net. Many people feel reluctant to do so in terms of security. Actually, there is a risk of abuse.
The present invention has been made to solve the above problems in the art, and an object of the invention is therefore to establish a valuable cipher information issuing technique that is entirely free of a risk of theft during the course of its distribution.
Another object of the invention is to establish a technique of settling various charges that is entirely free of a risk of failure in charge collection through application of the above valuable cipher information issuing technique.